


The Concerto of Seven Colors

by dyllpickless



Series: TUA Pride Month 2019 [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Substance Abuse, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, M/M, No Incest, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding, TUA Pride Month, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 07:44:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19058278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyllpickless/pseuds/dyllpickless
Summary: Day 1 of TUA Pride Month: 7 siblings, 7 colors of the rainbow





	The Concerto of Seven Colors

Luther was red his entire life. Reginald always said that was a good thing—he could use that to his advantage in fights against criminals and in training against his siblings. For a while, that’s exactly what he did. It was easier to punch things than to talk about them. Besides, words were Allison’s thing. But when he looked out onto the horizon at the bona fide Blue Marble, he felt a different color of red. A softer, deeper red. One that wouldn’t go away with a few thrown punches. One that, he realized, he wanted to hold onto.

Unsure of the reason why, Luther was suddenly gripped with an urge to pick up a pen and write about it. So that’s exactly what he did. And an hour later, he looked down at the lines on his page with a proud smile.

Pencils didn’t work for all of Luther’s reds, though. When he found out that all of that time up on the moon was for nothing, his vision swam in a tumultuous sea of blood. Klaus was the nearest person to him, and so he was thrown about the room like they were kids on hand-to-hand training day. The crack of his brother’s skull against the ground was familiar, but did nothing to calm the red. No pencils, no punches. Another glance at the care-free Klaus gave him an idea.

  


Diego burned bright orange when he turned 17 and spat in Reginald’s face. He was a bright ball of blazing fire as he grabbed his pre-packed bag of clothes and forced himself past the shocked faces of his family. “I’m leaving this hell hole once and for all,” he announced without a single skip in his words, “and none of you can do a thing about it.” With a surge of confidence, he looked each of them in the eye, suddenly glad Grace was in the kitchen preparing them all dinner.

“Number Two!” Reginald huffed. His eyes betrayed the surprise he had hidden behind his high chin and his taught face, which made Diego smirk.

“It’s Diego,” he hissed and spun on his heel. Ten steps was all it took. Ten steps and he was out onto the sidewalk, freer than he’d ever been in his life.

Diego was a softer, warmer orange years later when he turned the key in the lock of his brand new house. _Their_ brand new house. “It fits,” he murmured like he was expecting this whole dream to shatter and the truth be revealed.

“It does,” came the soft voice beside him.

In a gesture of cliche love, Diego turned and swept Eudora off her feet. “Our home awaits,” he said with a warm smile. It took a bit of fumbling, but he was able to get the door open. He stepped over the threshold and it became fact: Diego and Eudora owned their own home.

  


Allison pursed her lips and tossed her yellow-dyed hair over the side of her head, winking as the camera shuttered. Coos of praise echoed around the room, followed by a shout of congratulations. It was Allison’s first time on the front cover of a magazine as a movie star, and she was doing perfectly.

Her smile was pulled taught across her face as she glanced at the director of photography. Off to the side, some of her coworkers—her best friends— sent her a slightly jealous look from behind their golden sunglasses.

Just a few years later, and Allison was surrounded by genuine people. People that smiled like the sun and loved her just as warmly. She even began to use her money, her gold, for good. She put Five through rehab, helped Klaus and Dave start a life in 2019, “lost” enough money to Diego in a game of poker to help him and Eudora buy a house, bought Vanya a new violin. For the first time in her life, everybody around her had hearts of gold, smiles of honey.

When her family was taken care of, she turned to the community. She donated money to countless organizations under pseudonyms. There was actually news coverage on it at one point. But she didn’t care about the amount of fame she was missing out on. Her money wasn’t poisonous anymore, and she felt alive.

  


Klaus was dirt poor. When he thought of the color green, all that came to mind was the money he didn’t have. The money he never would have. He knew he wouldn’t; addicts like him don’t get rich. They don’t live comfortably.

He made the most money when he was on his knees in an alley. Sometimes he could make over a thousand bucks in one night. He’d be loaded if he didn’t piss it all away moments after the bills the insides of his pockets. The thought of green paper haunted his dreams, soiled his thoughts, and poisoned his feelings.

Vietnam was green. A Shau was in the middle of a thick jungle, sometimes so dense you could barely see the man in front of you. It was nothing like the spacious mansion he grew up in, or the open alleys he spent most of his adult life in. And the clothes. God, he prayed he wouldn’t die in that khaki green.

Then again, he could’ve sworn that he died as soon as he looked into those deep eyes of the one he learned to love more than anything else in the world. One night, while they were lying awake in a cheap hotel they’d managed to duck into, Klaus thought of the color green. Not the green of crumpled bills, but the green of leaves dripping with rainwater, of the fabric that framed his boyfriend’s face.

“What are you thinking about?” Dave murmured, drawing invisible art onto Klaus’ pale skin.

“You. Us.” It was all he had to say. Dave was green, and with him, Klaus was green too. The green of life. The green of love.

  


Five was the only one whose powers had any sort of color. His color was blue. In English class, he found out that blue meant solitude, sadness, and stiffness. That made sense to him. He was the cold, angry, cocky son of an abusive millionaire, and he killed people as often as a regular kid did math homework.

He never really felt sad, or if he did he was quick to suppress it. But that in itself is sad, so it worked. And he was almost always by himself. He preferred it to the hugging and touching they had to do when they were in front of a camera. It was better to deal with things on his own and not get too attached to anybody. _Emotional attachments will only be held against you, Number Five._

It was only until after the apocalypse did he realize how bullshit that was. They had to work together again in that theater, something he hadn’t done in 45 years. If it wasn’t for Klaus and Ben, they’d all be dead and the Earth would be a charred marble drifting alone in space. Instead, they all worked together and not only were they alive, but they were fixing growing.

On a day that surprisingly wasn’t filled with frantic equations and panicked thinking, Ben suggested they read in the library. It was a tradition the two held in the seconds between missions and classes, one Five thought back to often in the apocalypse. So of course he couldn’t refuse. That was where he suddenly came across his old research into the color blue, where he’d apparently looked over a few bits of information. _Blue symbolizes trust._ His jaw slack, Five looked up at Ben, who was engrossed in a book with a faint, knowing smile on his lips. _Huh. Maybe._

  


Being a ghost meant Ben was forced to listen and pay attention more to those around him; specifically Klaus and the rest of his family. Before, he did his best to escape his world, favoring those found within the cozy leather bindings of his books. But after his death, he watched the world around him through his ghostly eyes and hazy indigo aura.

His whole family had a lot of things that were kept behind closed doors, something Freud would satisfied with. Most people did, in fact. When he wasn’t with Klaus, he spent a lot of his time just people-watching. Sometimes, though, when he was able to, he would pop in on his siblings. He wasn’t able to be with all of them, Luther being on the moon and Allison traveling around the world for her acting career. But sometimes he was able to catch when Reginald received Luther’s packages, and sometimes he was able to see glimpses of interviews that Allison had.

So when he was suddenly corporeal, the invisibly-indigo Ben felt like he knew his family pretty well. He and Five talked about his time in the apocalypse and even bonded over some of the feelings of solitude. Allison confessed some of her regrets; apparently she’d used her powers a lot more than even Ben knew about. When Diego’s fingers started drumming against his jeans, Ben knew enough to pull him into a side room and talk him through some breathing exercises. Though being a ghost was hell, at least now he could use that experience to pay attention to his family.

  


Vanya always went through life followed by music drifting through the air. It was her escape from dealing with the consequences of the actions of others, her vacation to a world that spoke a language nobody in the house knew. The notes on the pages, bound in her violet folder, were splashes of art on a tapestry that was under her control. She dictated when a stroke was a bold wine, or when one was such a feather light periwinkle purple that one thought they were just imagining its existence.

The pills she was taking made her strokes slightly stiffer than the others’, but it was a small price to pay. Or so she thought. When she went off the pills, her notes wove and danced in the air in a way she couldn’t even imagine. The spectrum of colors, she learned, was far vaster than she could imagine.

Eventually, playing other people’s music didn’t become enough for Vanya. Though she loved commanding how the notes twisted and permeated into the air, the order was according to somebody else. So, one night, after a lively family dinner in Diego’s new apartment, she sat in her apartment and took out blank staff paper. She did the same over the next few weeks, working tirelessly to get her own melody onto paper.

In the end, there were seven movements, each named after the seven colors of the rainbow for her seven siblings. The music pirouetted through the pages until it came to the final violet resolution. A low bow and a lift from violin strings, the strokes hung in the vibrating air until they came to a final, peaceful, happy end.

**Author's Note:**

> Can y'all tell I love color symbolism? I saw this prompt and I immediately wrote this I was so excited! Kudos and comments are much appreciated love you all thank you for reading <3


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